Dispatches
by Elsha
Summary: 1997 is a very bad year in the wizarding world. If you’re a Muggleborn witch or a Death Eater’s son, it’s as bad as it can possibly get. Just hold on. Disverse, AU to other stories after Discussions but draws on them, canon compliant as of DH.
1. Part I: Beginnings

**Part I**: _it starts like this_

Three days before her little brother's birthday, Anne Fairleigh leaves home, maybe for good. It's not because there's anything wrong with her home life, quite the contrary; it's because there is_nothing_ wrong with it, because her mother and father and brother and sisters are the most important things she has in this world and she doesn't want to lose them. She takes, in reverse order of importance, her backpack, her wand, and her sister.

The reason she is leaving flies into her room at three twenty AM, in the coolest hours of an otherwise muggy August night. The weather has been unseasonable – fogs of despair, caused by Dementors; storms and floods and deaths. Anne lives with the daily fear that she and her family will be next. She hasn't heard from Theo in almost a month now, and she doesn't even let herself think about him. It hurts too much.

So she's more than a little startled when she's woken from her restless sleep by a hand clamping over her mouth. She bolts upright, prepared to shriek, only to find herself looking straight into Theo's face, dimly lit by the streetlight outside her window. The thin shadow that wasn't there before resolves into the handle of a broomstick, dropped against the windowsill.

"It's all right," he hisses urgently, "it's me, it's me, it's all right -"

He lets Anne pull his hand away from her face.

"What's the first piece of music you ever gave me?" she asks, unable to take her eyes off his face. He looks tired and terrified, and in desperate need of a shave, but it might not _be_ him, it might be a Death Eater, there's no way –

"Mozart's third concerto for flute and piano, andantino," he replies promptly. "In the third music room on the left, after I bumped into you when that Quidditch game was going on, two years ago -"

"Yes, okay, yes, it _is_ you," Anne says, and surprises herself by bursting into tears. She's been terrified ever since school ended, since that battle on the grounds, and now Theo's here it comes back to grip her. Theo, for his part, just holds her until she's got control. It doesn't take too long – she can feel Theo very clearly through her thin summer nightie, and she _has_ to sit up straight and wipe her eyes, in case she loses control of other things.

"But what are you doing _here_?" she asks, once she can. "I haven't heard for a month, and everything's going wrong, and people are dying, and, Theo, what -"

"Running away," he interrupts her, smiling in a queer, twisted fashion. "It's war now, you know that. I had to pick a side. If I'd hung around at my aunt and uncle's any longer, there wouldn't have been much choice about it."

"Well,_obviously_," Anne shoots back, feeling unaccountably angry – at Theo, at his family, at the world, she's not sure – "obviously, but what are you doing _here_? It's three in the morning! I mean, I'm glad to see you, I really, really am." She doesn't want him to feel like he's not welcome here. He is, if she has anything to say about it. Always.

"Fetching you," Theo responds, shifting over to sit cross-legged on the bed. "Because it's been bad, this summer, you know that, especially for Muggle-borns. But it's about to get worse. A _lot_ worse. It's only a matter of time before the Ministry's taken, and then what are you going to do? So I came to get you."

"I don't understand." And Anne doesn't, or maybe it's just the being woken up in the middle of the night that's making her slow. "Or, no, I get it, but not _yet_, it can't be that bad _yet_ – I'm still trying to convince my parents to take a long trip to a nice safe country, we've got cousins in New Zealand, or France would do right now, but I haven't got them round yet -"

Theo nods, slowly. "All right. And we can try again, tomorrow – today – but if they aren't going to then you can't stay here, Anne. You or Terry. They might be all right if you just run. They won't if you're here."

It all feels like a horrible nightmare, and Anne can do nothing but shake her head helplessly. "I – I can't _do_ that -"

"Yes, you can." Theo takes her hand and holds it tight. "Yes, you can, because if you don't you'll probably die, and so will they, and you don't want that to happen. And they won't let you go back to Hogwarts, not now; once they take the Ministry they'll have Hogwarts. So you have to leave here."

"And go where?" Anne says, feeling defeated, and lost, and like this really _must_ be all a bad dream, brought on by the war and Theo's absence.

Theo shrugs. "I don't know yet. I can't even do magic without being caught, not until my birthday, and that's not for a couple of weeks yet. I just don't know. I've been running for – oh, since forever now, that's why I couldn't write to you, just in case someone found out, and I can't – I don't -"

He looks broken, and Anne still doesn't quite believe all of this is happening.

"Look," she says firmly, "it's three in the morning. If they haven't caught you for a month they're not going to yet, and you need to have some sleep."

Theo presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. "I don't disagree on that point."

"Then come on, lie down," Anne tells him, already feeling sleep claiming her back. "It'll all make sense in the morning."

Theo chuckles, like he gets something she doesn't, but he shucks off his shoes and lies down all the same, and Anne gets one last peaceful night – snuggled up with her boyfriend, even – before everything changes.

* * *

It does make sense in the morning, but not quite in the way Anne had hoped. She and Theo are woken up by the piercing shriek of Terry's voice.

"OH MY GOD, YOU -"

Anne is sitting bolt upright in a second, but Theo is quicker; Terry jumps backwards at his pointed wand, but, fortunately for everyone, stops shrieking, and responds to Theo's gestured command to close the door.

"Mum and Dad are going to _kill_ you," she tells both of them in a stage-whisper. "Skin and carve and -"

"That's not the problem," Theo tells her grimly. In the early morning light – by Anne's alarm clock, it's only seven thirty, and a Saturday to boot – he looks even more disreputable than he did last night. Earlier that morning. Whatever. "It really, really isn't."

"No, he's right, it's not, and you better not have woken them up," Anne adds, nudging Theo out of the way and standing up. The pit of her stomach is crawling, but she feels weirdly calm, like she knows what she has to do. Maybe waking up beside Theo has done that; not just the burst of joy that he's here, but the certain knowledge he could very easily not be, if something had gone just a little wrong. Too many people she knows from school have died or been sent to Azkaban for her to not realise that.

All three of them pause for a moment to listen for the sound of waking parents, but nothing stirs in the Fairleigh household.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Terry addresses Theo, perching on Anne's dresser. "You haven't written for _ages_ and Anne kept saying she didn't know where you were and all those Death Eaters are _killing_ people and Cait's cousin got _killed_last week and – are they coming here?" Her usually-perky face is pale. Terry has been just as emphatic as Anne in trying to persuade their parents that they are all in danger, but Terry's age and size and dramatic nature have made this more of a hindrance than a help. Anne has had to comfort a crying Terry more than once when she's been brushed off yet again.

Theo looks like he doesn't know where to start, so Anne does. "Theo thinks the Death Eaters are going to take the Ministry." Terry is only twelve, but it's her life that will be at stake here; she has a right to know, as far as Anne is concerned. "So we can't go back to Hogwarts. It won't be safe."

Terry folds her arms, and frowns. "Does that mean we have to go to _Muggle_ school? That's going to be so _boring_."

Anne shakes her head. "It means…look, go and have breakfast or something, okay? Theo and I will be down in a minute." She can't bring herself to say to Terry what she knows is the truth: Theo is right. They have to leave. Every minute they stay puts their family in more danger. At three it seemed like a nightmare, but now it's real. Theo's silence drives it home. He's not a chatterbox like Terry, but he seems too disturbed to speak. Or too scared.

She's not sure which is worse.

* * *

Theo knows that Anne won't leave home without talking to her parents, as much as he considers this a risky course of action – the more they know, the more they can be forced to tell – but she is young, well, younger than him, a little bit, and she's still getting used to the idea that leaving is safer than staying. So he lets her push him into taking a shower in the strange Muggle bathroom, and shaving – his hands are shaking and he cuts himself twice – in order that her parents don't think he looks like he walked in off the street. Which, basically, he did, but that's no way to get Anne away from here. He's a Slytherin, he gets the importance of manipulation, especially this unspoken, visual kind. He can do this.

The shaving cuts make him look too young, but there's nothing to be done about that.

He did think about this before climbing on his broomstick one evening and leaving his family behind him for good. He did. He held out for a whole month on his own, basically camping out in the Pennines, before he came here. He'd wanted to make sure he wasn't just bringing Death Eaters down on Anne and her family, but he's pretty certain, by now, that he's not. One runaway son who hadn't even sworn his oath to the Dark Lord is not as interesting a target as, say, Potter, or the Weasleys, or the thousands of half-bloods and Muggle-borns the Ministry can't or won't protect. And no-one knows about him and Anne, _no-one_, he's sure of it. So she and Terry and her parents and Eddie and Nicola are in no more danger today than they were yesterday. But he heard enough about the Dark Lord's plans while he was still at his uncle and aunt's; he knows that they are _this close_ to taking over the Ministry, that once they have, they will be shipping people like Anne off to Azkaban in scores, the ones who aren't just murdered outright. This is long enough. He couldn't leave it another day.

He's even willing to make some concessions to Anne's family, since he doesn't want her to have to break with her family in leaving – it's an ugly necessity, he won't make it uglier – so he puts on, not his robes, but some Muggle clothing he enchanted into existence while still at home, where underage magic would go unnoticed, because he was a Death Eater's son, and who cared? He'd had to hide it _very_ carefully, but Charms had always been his best class and wards his favourite spells. He managed, like he managed a lot of things that month of June, pretending not to see or hear or be sick at everything going on around him. He managed, barely.

So when Anne's mother comes downstairs to make a cup of tea, she finds Anne, Theo, and Terry sitting at the kitchen table, all dressed and sparkling. Theo catches a glimpse of them reflected in the kitchen window. Terry looks barely ten. Anne is beautiful in the morning sunlight, as it brings out the blonde streaks in her fair hair and the structure of her face. Almost ethereal. She's stronger than she looks, Theo knows that. Even he looks better than he feels, clean-shaven and hair that's _really_ too long these days back behind his ears. The Muggle clothing just looks strange on him, out of place, but it's a disguise of sorts and one he hopes will hold. He knows Anne's parents will not possibly appreciate the length he's gone to, but that doesn't matter, if it works.

Mary Fairleigh is apparently not at her best first thing in the morning, because it takes her two glances to notice that her two eldest daughters are ridiculously scrubbed and awake for nine am on a summer Saturday, and that there is a strange boy sitting at her kitchen table. When she does notice, she nearly drops the e-lec-tric kettle she's holding. (Terry has told him what it was ten minutes earlier, when Anne boiled it to make tea. Theo thought it was _fascinating_, how Muggles came up with the strangest solutions to their handicap.)

"Mum, this is Theodore Nott, um, Theo," Anne says hastily, before her mother can speak. "He goes to school with me and Terry."

"Really." Her mother raises an eyebrow. "Your friend Theo who plays the piano, is it?"

Theo nods. "Yes, Mrs. Fairleigh. I'm sorry to disturb your household so early, but it was urgent."

"He says we can't go back to Hogwarts," Terry bursts in, evidently unable to hold it back a second longer. "It's not fair, I don't_want_ to not go back. I'll have to do _maths_ and stuff if I go to Muggle school."

Anne's mother frowns. "And why would that be?"

Anne spares her sister only a short glare for bringing up the topic they'd hope to work up to slowly. "Mum, you, um…you might want to sit down."

Her mother tenses, stress in every line of her. Theo guesses that Anne's steady warnings may have hit closer than Anne had thought. "Is this something your father should be hearing, as well?"

"Yes, definitely," Anne says soberly, and "Yes," chimes in Theo. "It's…it's very important. For all of you."

"Then I'll go get him," Anne's mother says, and walks out of the kitchen.

"This is going…better than I'd expected," says Anne, after a moment of silence as Terry gapes at the door.

"She didn't even ask when you _got_ here," mutters Terry, impressed. "When _did_ you get here?"

"Witching hour." Theo lets his mouth quirk in a smile, and gets an eyeroll from Terry. It's something. He hates to see her so frightened.

* * *

It's an odd conference they hold, the Fairleighs in their pyjamas, Anne and Terry perched on the edge of their seats, and Theo relaxed back in his chair like he's actually got some authority, although Anne can tell that it's a cover, because all the worry she saw last night hasn't gone away. But it works, a little, and the Muggle clothing he thought to bring stops her parents freaking out right off, and they – she and Theo, with the occasional interjection from Terry – explain.

"There is a war out there," Theo begins bluntly. "I'm sure Anne and Terry have told you that. It's true. All those bursting gas mains and storms and car accidents? They're not. Wizards and witches are killing each other, and a lot of innocent bystanders into the bargain, all over the British isles, and it's not going to stop, not until – I don't know when. You probably feel safe here. You're not."

"And why is that?" Jonathan Fairleigh asks, with all the asperity of a man who has been forced out of bed early. "We haven't done anything to anyone."

"Because it _doesn't matter_, Dad," Anne continues, reaching for Theo's hand under the table. It helps. "Because there are a whole lot of people out there who want to kill me and Terry – and you and Ed and Nic as well, and not just kill, they – worse, okay? Not because we've done something, but because we're _alive_. Because you don't have magic and Terry and I do, and in their eyes, that makes us – they think we make the world worse just by being here. And Theo's pretty sure that they're going to get control of Hogwarts, soon enough."

Her parents' faces are showing the first signs of alarm. She feels a vague sense of guilt – it's her fault, after all, her birth that's putting them in this position – but they won't be any better off if Voldemort takes over completely.

Theo looks them both in the eye. "I have it on very good authority – the best – that the Dark Lord and his followers are within weeks of taking over the Ministry of Magic. Maybe less. They take the Ministry, they take Hogwarts. If they do that, then it is _over_ for all the Muggle-borns who can be found. They will be rounded up and they will be trialled and sentenced and taken to Azkaban, and, believe me, that's hell on earth. The ones who aren't killed out of hand, of course. And if Anne and Terry are still where they're expected to be by that point – if they are going to Hogwarts at the end of the month, if they are here – they will be captured. The only safe thing for them to do is to get out _now_."

"You never said out of _home_," Terry complains, crossing her arms. "We can't do _that_."

"Out?" repeats Anne's mum, who has now progressed to fully stunned. "Out of _where_?"

"Well, England, preferably, like I've been telling you all summer," Anne says. "But it's probably a bit late for that. Anywhere, I guess." Her parents look so horrified she feels compelled to add, "I don't_like_ it, but I don't know what else to do. I can't stay and put you in danger."

"This is _ridiculous_," splutters her father. "Totally. _Dark Lord_? I know some bad things have been going on, I've read that strange magic paper you get, and your Headmaster did die, but you can't just leave home, you're sixteen, for God's sake. Where are you going to do and who are you going to go to and – Anne, if you can't go to Hogwarts any more, we can get you transferred to Ed's school. I know it's not what you'd want, but that should be safe enough, if these people see you're not a threat -"

"It doesn't matter," said Terry, hunched miserably in her chair. "Dad, it doesn't matter. Elise down the road wasn't a threat. They killed her."

Anne knows her parents remember the Martins dying last summer, with only their toddler surviving, and that a stroke of luck. "Like Terry says. It doesn't matter who we are."

Anne's mother folds her arms. "All right. Say this is true. What are you planning to _do_, precisely?"

Theo looks, for just a second, terrifyingly bemused. "Not die?"

Anne's mother is not impressed with this answer. "No. _Exactly_, what will you do. Where are you going to go? Is there anyone who can help you? How long will you have to hide? Have you got a _plan_?"

Her father looks thoughtful now. Anne finds this terrifying in and of itself. "Good questions. Well, young man?"

Theo took a deep breath. "I don't know, precisely. Hiding out in the Muggle world will probably work for a while, and Anne and Terry would be fine, but I'd stick out like a sore thumb – and you can be lost in a crowd, but you can just as easily run into someone by accident in one. Most major cities have wizarding areas. I've basically been camping out in the Pennines for a month, which is about as much fun as it sounds."

"We can't camp out for a year," Anne objected, even though she was fairly certain Theo wasn't considering it, "especially not for Terry."

"No," Theo agreed. "And not Yorkshire, or Wales, or Scotland, or London; they're all far too dangerous, or I have relatives there."

"How long are you going to need to hide for?" Anne's mother asked. "A week, a month – what?"

Anne was intensely glad her parents were trying to take this seriously, although her father was still looking dubious. "We don't know. However long it might be, until the Dark Lord's defeated."

"I can't believe there's someone running around getting people to call him the 'Dark Lord'," her father muttered, "he must be totally off his rocker."

"Worse," Theo said tightly. "Or, no, he is, but not in…not in any way that makes him vulnerable. That would be…easy."

"You sound like you know him quite well," says Anne's mother, in a tone obviously intended to break the mood, but Theo's grip on Anne's hand tightens like a vise.

"No, actually, I haven't had the pleasure," he bites out, and Anne remembers that Theo has talked about the last month, but he has _not_ talked about what went on between Dumbledore's funeral and his decision to cut his losses and leave his family behind. There hasn't been time, and she hasn't had the courage to ask.

"Who's fighting him?" That question comes from Anne's father. "If there's a war, who's on the _other_ side, apart from a lot of innocent victims?"

"Not very many people," Anne says, quietly. "Not very many people at all." It strikes her for the first time, _what if they lose_? It's never seemed like a real proposition before, but now, suddenly, with Theo sitting at her kitchen table telling her parents that she has to leave home or die, it does. It does.

_What if there's nothing to be done? What if we're just biding time? Buying days? _

"What about your family?" asks Anne's father. "Would Anne and Terry be safe with them? Do they even know you're here?"

Terry begins to giggle, quietly, hopelessly; Anne leans her elbows on the table and puts her face in her hands, totally unable to cope with the situation any more, the sheer _ridiculousness_ of it. Theo, like Terry, laughs, but the edge of hysteria is clearly audible in his voice.

"No, oh, no, I hope to hell they don't," he manages to say once he sobers, "because then we are all so very dead, Mr. Fairleigh, all of us, right now, and it would be my fault. My family, my family…" he trails off.

Anne's parents are staring, now, really scared for the first time. Theo leans forward, slightly, as if to drive home his words. "I think you deserve the truth about this, Mr. Fairleigh, Mrs. Fairleigh. And the truth is: I am here, right now, because the other option was being one of the Dark Lord's good little soldiers and _killing_ and _torturing_ people for him. People like you. And, Merlin help me, I am far too much of a coward to try and seek out the other side, not now, not when everything is on the knife-edge – but I am, fortunately, maybe, enough of _not_ one to want my…my friends out of danger. And that's it. That's all I can do."

Anne's mother tilts her head, as if considering. "How old are you, Theodore?"

Theo looks off-balance, Anne notes; it's clearly not the response he was expecting. "Seventeen, nearly."

"Not for a couple of weeks yet," Anne objects, "you're not that much older than me."

Something in that, in the revelation of Theo's age, seems to bring all this finally home to Anne's parents. They both slump back in their chairs, as if stunned.

"Nearly seventeen," repeats Anne's father. "_Jesus_."

"I don't see how my daughters will be any safer with you than by themselves or with us," Anne's father points out.

"We will 'cause Theo's nearly seventeen," Terry interrupts. "And when you're seventeen you can do magic legally outside Hogwarts. I can't and Anne can't and it won't be safe for us by ourselves, 'cause if we do have to use magic, we'll be in trouble."

"Surely in a war situation -" begins their father, but Anne cuts him off. "No, Dad, because if the Ministry has been taken over by the Death Eaters, they can track us down if we do magic underage, there's – it's like a tracking spell, on us. It breaks when we're seventeen. So I can't protect myself without being caught, unless it's life or death, but Theo can. And he can do wards and stuff, so we can't be seen and heard or – oh, lots of things."

"But there must be someone else, someone who could look after you, some_adult_," Anne's mother says desperately. "Someone…"

Theo shakes his head. "No. Because, and I will be blunt, as far as the Ministry is concerned you and your daughters and your whole family are _eminently_ expendable. There is no one else coming. Except the Death Eaters, maybe. If there was someone…" His face tightened. "If I thought there was someone I could go to, I'd go to them."

"You must know someone who's not…" Anne's mother waved a hand to signify, _one of them_.

"Just Anne and Terry," Theo said. "Who actually like me and wouldn't think I was a Death Eater spy, that is."

"How can we trust you?"

And it's a fair question, coming from her father, who's never met Theo before in his life, but it still makes Anne angry.

"Because you _can_," she says, "because he's here, because I do."

"Me too," says Terry gravely. "He pulled me out of the swamp at Hogwarts once."

"_Swamp_?" echo both parents in chorus.

"Just a little one." Terry looks slightly guilty. "Really. A little one."

"Which doesn't actually matter if you're _neck deep in it_," snapped back Theo, rubbing the back of Anne's now-bloodless hand with his thumb before letting go, "like I seem to remember you were."

"Yes, but not _on purpose_," Terry offers.

Anne's mother sighs and puts her head in her hands. "I think this is all absolutely insane, not that you're asking my opinion, but…"

"But…?" Anne prompts.

"If we tell you it's nonsense and ask Theodore to leave and send you to your room, what happens?" asks her mother, looking her straight in the eye. And Anne does her a favour and tells the perfect truth, because there is no more room for lies.

"I pack a bag and pull out my broomstick and leave this house. With Terry. I won't stick around to make you all a target, I _can't -_" and now she's about to cry, this is terrible, "and I won't. I'm sorry."

"That was reasonably obvious," her father admits.

Theo reaches for her hand again, and she holds it tight.

"In that case," says her mother, "I have an idea."

Everyone stares at her.

"What is it?" asks Theo finally.

* * *

Theo can't believe that Mrs. Fairleigh is actually being _helpful_ about this – he expected to basically have to drag Anne and Terry out of the house at wandpoint, and was fully prepared to do so if he had to. Instead, Anne's mother is bustling around finding out the location of a camping hut some friends of hers have in the Lake District, which, according to her, is not far enough from Muggle towns that there will be a large wizarding population (Theo confirms this for her – there are far too many tourists in the area for there to be many wizarding villages) but far enough from _large_ towns to avoid running into wizards and witches by accident.

"I wouldn't call it well-built, exactly," she admits dubiously, "mostly it just gets used by people going on walks. But it's standing and there's even electricity, sometimes, and I'd far rather I knew where you _were_."

The last is addressed to Anne and Terry. Anne says what Theo's thinking, which surprises him no end.

"I wouldn't rather. It'd be safer if…"

She trails off under her mother's look – something between confusion, worry, and the still-present trace of disbelief. Personally, Theo thinks that Fairleighs are nothing short of astonishing in the way they've handled today's revelations, let alone the last six years of discovery that the world just does not work the way they thought it did. He's barely been able to cope with working out that Muggles are normal people, or, okay, Muggle-borns are _definitely_ normal people and Muggles must be, too, or pretty close, because they produced Anne and Terry, didn't they, and not being able to use magic doesn't make them _inferior_, just…different. And while he has a niggling suspicion that sense of difference isn't going away any time soon, he's managed to meet Anne's Muggle family without inadvertently insulting them, which is, probably, given the first fifteen years of his life, something of a victory.

He tunes back in to Mrs. Fairleigh's continued explanation of this place she thinks they'll be safe just before Terry kicks him in the ankle. He can tell because of the way her leg twitched. Gryffindors are so _violent_.

"…there isn't a phone, but -"

"Phone?" Theo frowns. He knows Anne has mentioned it, some sort of communication device.

The bewilderment on Mrs. Fairleigh's face is something to behold. "A phone…it's…you don't have _phones_? That's – you know, I feel like every time I think I'm getting a grip on the wizarding world, it slips away from me."

"They're sort of like Floo," Terry rattles off at high pace, "but you can't travel by them, you just talk through them and hear the other person's voice. They use electricity. I think. Don't they?"

"Not exactly," Anne corrects her, "but pretty close. Like Floo, yeah."

"I wouldn't trust the Floo network right now anyway," Theo informs her, "there's too many spies in the Ministry."

"Well, it's not like we're hooked up," Anne shrugs, "they don't, you know. Muggle houses. Even with us here."

"Floo?" Mrs. Fairleigh looks like she lost track of this conversation some time ago.

"You sort of…" Anne waves a hand, as if that will explain everything. "Like phones. Um. But you put some magic powder on the fire and then you can talk to people through the fire, or travel through it. I've only used it that once when I went to stay with Sarah for a week and we visited Gabby, year before last."

Mrs. Fairleigh just shakes her head. "I think we'll just leave that for the moment. The cabin doesn't have a phone -"

"I'll show you how to use one later," Anne mutters in Theo's ear – she's sitting next to him on the couch.

"- but there's a payphone down at the village, it's about forty minutes' walk away, so you can use that. I expect weekly calls." Mrs. Fairleigh smiles sadly. "It'll be almost better than having you at Hogwarts: you can't call home from there."

Anne nods. "Of course, as often as we can." She turns to look at Theo. "That is, if you think it'll be safe…"

Theo assents immediately; this, at least, he can give them. "Yes, of course, no reason why it won't be. I doubt there's more than one or two Death Eaters who even know what a phone _is_, and they're not exactly going to be advertising the knowledge. Them tracking you through it would be like…well, I suppose, your parents finding someone using the Floo network."

He wins a small smile from Anne, at that, at the price of a bland expression from her mother, like she's wondering if that was an insult of sorts. It wasn't, it was a direct comparison. Two worlds, one small island, such a vast gulf. He wonders how they've been able to maintain it all those years, really – especially with people like Anne, crossing the border every term. Or what about Roberta Martin, Anne's neighbour – a Muggle like Eddie or Nicola, knowing the wizarding world from her sibling. She'd crossed, permanently, and died for it. And now here he is, Theodore Nott, from a family that's been stuck believing the wizarding world is the only real one since pretty much the Dark Ages (ignoring the_unpleasant_ spots on the family tree) and he's crossing the other way. Sixty million people in the British Isles; once you leave the familiar confines of the world _he_ knows, Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, all those hidden places connected by Floo and Apparition and broomstick, it's a very big place to get lost in. He's just brushing the edges.

The reason those worlds have stayed separate, he knows, is because once Muggle-borns find their magic, they don't go back. They go to Hogwarts, like Anne and Terry, and then they marry wizards and witches and work with them and play Quidditch and listen to their radio, and pretty soon, he imagines, they've lost everything they had in common with the Muggle families and friends, the ones who don't know and the ones who do. And then there they are, if there's no Dark wizard rising to single them out, and in a few generations, no-one remembers. That'll save a lot of the half-blood families out there in this terror; the fragility of memory, of history. Maybe that can happen the other way; maybe, if they work this right, if they hide among the Muggles and don't draw attention to themselves and look and sound and live like them (to some extent, okay, he doesn't know how not to use magic every day, he's been counting down the days 'till he's seventeen and it's safe like a mantra, because he doesn't know anything else), maybe then they'll be safe. Maybe he can absorb into this new world that's opening up as seamlessly as Anne and Terry and all the others before them have absorbed into_his_.

The thought terrifies him. It's like contemplating losing a part of himself. But he's lost so many bits already, the bits that said _I am a Slytherin, and a pure-blood, and a Nott, and these are the most important things in the world_; the bits that said _Mudblood_ and _blood-traitor_ and _who'd want to be like them, they're practically animals_. He misplaced them, or maybe Transfigured them, somewhere between running into Anne in a corridor and sitting here, now, in her living room, counting the hours he's been in this house and wondering how much more time he can afford before it will have been too long in one undefended place. He's given up so many things already to get to this point, the one where saving Anne and her sister is the only real goal he's got left, that a few more just don't matter. There isn't anything else, except walking back and taking his punishment, risking possible death and certain torture to be allowed the privilege of inflicting them on other people, ones who mostly have no idea what they've done (because they haven't done anything.) He didn't realise that he had such clearly defined _limits_, two years ago when he befriended Anne. But he does, apparently. He won't be broken and he won't break anyone, because that would mean the same thing. Typical selfish Slytherin thinking, in the end;_this is mine, and you can't have it_. That it's his sense of self-worth and his girlfriend and her annoying sister he's being so possessive about is irrelevant, really.

* * *

They discuss train tickets and packing and whether Theo and Anne are_absolutely_ certain this is the best idea. They are, they know, she was confused last night but Theo barely had to give her one look this morning and she understood. Even bright brave Terry understands in her own way, having lived the last year at Hogwarts. They talked about this, all three of them, one quiet Sunday morning in the music room after Anne had laid down her flute and Terry had bounded in. Anne asked him, what if, what if it gets worse, and Theo told her, quietly, what he thought. He tried not to scare Terry too much but her sharp brown eyes were challenging and in the end he gave up, and it was only when he noticed how close she was huddling to Anne that he remembered she was not quite twelve and words like "they'll torture you and then they'll kill you and they'll take as long as they can about it, which is why you need to get your parents to leave the country if it gets worse" were maybe not what she should be hearing. Definitely not.

Unfortunately, they were _true_ words, as evidenced by his presence here now, so Terry is just as certain as they are, in her own brash way, and he thinks it's that that brings Mrs. Fairleigh around as much as his own perfectly rational logic. Then again, the sight of an almost-twelve year old girl gritting her teeth and saying "Mum, I want to go because I don't want to die, and I don't want _you_ to die," should, Theo thinks, be enough to stir any parent's heart.

Part of him wonders, deep down, if his mother would have kept him safe, kept him separate from everything his father has – has been involved in. He doesn't think so. The Jugsons were every bit as much a proud old pureblood family as the Notts.

It's a nice dream, even so.

It's agreed, finally, after Mrs. Fairleigh calls her friend to talk about the cabin and Mr. Fairleigh digs out some old camping gear that Theo is absolutely certain they will have no need for (a thought he doesn't voice, seeing as Mr. Fairleigh is clearly determined to make a material contribution to his daughters' continued survival and Theo cannot possibly fault that, in fact, is deeply envious of it) that they will leave the next day. Theo wants it to be today, or rather, _right this minute_, but he settles, because he's still pretty sure he hasn't been tracked here (the lack of blood and screaming and death is a good clue). In an attempt to be – something, he's not sure what – he peels potatoes for dinner and does his best to actually talk to Eddie Fairleigh (mostly by letting Eddie explain the rules of cricket to him, the third Fairleigh to do so and easily the least comprehensible). Anne goes and makes up the couch for him before either of her parents even mentions it, in a suspiciously meek manner. Theo has known Anne for two years now and she is quiet, considerate, and occasionally remote, but _never_ meek. He's pretty sure it's a pre-emptive strike on her parents, who _did_ notice that Theo's bag and broomstick were in Anne's room and probably drew the appropriate conclusions about his time and method of arrival, but thankfully didn't say anything. They just looked at him. Hence the potato-peeling and cricket conversation. He is so astoundingly grateful, by this point, that they are not being as unreasonable as they have every right to be (perhaps the Muggle clothing worked?) that he doesn't want to muck it up, and that just could have. Luckily for everyone, Terry _can_ keep her mouth shut when requested or threatened, so nothing further comes of it.

Before they all go to bed Theo double-checks the wards that Priam Martin placed on this house a year ago – adequate, but not likely to stop Death Eaters for long – and kisses Anne on the landing at the top of the stairs, where he can hear her family safely in the kitchen. He holds her very tightly, burying his face in her hair, and tries to tell himself that everything is going to go right and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry bloody Potter will, miraculously, save the day, and Anne will be able to come back to this house and her family and all will be well.

He knows that even in that unlikely situation he will still not have any family to go to, a lot of people will still be dead, and judging by Potter's track record they can't hope for any sort of respite until May at the earliest, which is a very long time away. So instead of dragging Anne back to her room (to hold and talk, her parents are in the house, he's not _stupid_) he kisses her once more on the forehead and they go back downstairs.

He tries not to notice that she's been crying. So has he. He's just so damn scared, and tired, and…everything, really. Everything.

* * *

The train is nothing like the Hogwarts Express, or it'd be on time, but Anne can't help feeling, as they drive to the station, that maybe this is all a very bad dream and she's actually going back to school, with Terry and Theo. One look at her mother's carefully composed expression and Nic's edgy quiet dispels _that_ illusion. So does the fact that it's three backpacks in the boot of the car, not three school trunks – Theo's bag turns out to be enchanted and holds the contents of approximately a small house, which came in very handy when packing – and the fact that Theo is_here_, in a_car_, and looking around as they travel in a way that is both bemused, delighted, and just a bit concerned.

"It just doesn't feel very _safe_," Theo confides to her.

She pats his arm. "It's fine, it's much safer than a broomstick, I bet."

"Then why is the Ministry passing off so many deaths as "car accidents", if it's so safe?" That's said with a quirk of the eyebrow that is so inexpressibly _Theo_ she can't help smiling, because he's here and he's alive and they're all right, just for now.

At the station, it gets a _lot_ worse. Theo is pretty much okay, doesn't need watching or things explained to him every five seconds, because he gets the concept of "train" in a way that he does not so many other things. (It's strange, being the knowledgeable one. Anne likes it, or would if it wasn't so weird.)

Her family decidedly aren't. Terry is bright and chatty in a tone that means she's going to explode any minute, her parents are grim, Eddie is just grunting in response to everything, which is normal Eddie behaviour for this summer but very difficult right now when she's about to leave home to hide from Death Eaters, and Nic is in outright tears.

"It's okay," Anne says, crouching down to hug her, "Terry and I are just going away, it's like school, we'll be back as soon as we can, maybe sooner than when we go to school. Maybe for Christmas. It's fine. Practice the piano lots while we're gone, Theo says you played really well for him." When she'd gone down this morning she'd found Nic perched on the piano stool and Theo watching her, letting himself be taken away by the sight of music – awkward nine-year-old music, but music nonetheless. She'd packed her flute, out of habit. Even Theo's bag couldn't fit a piano, or Terry's 'cello. She wished it could. That would be a familiar comfort.

Nic's big brown eyes are filled with tears. "Promise? You promise Christmas, like normal?"

Anne says yes, feeling guilty because it's probably a lie, but it gets Nic to stop crying for a little while. She hugs her parents and Eddie, who mutters "come back safe" in her ear, and now _she's_ about to cry, but she doesn't. Theo gets a big hug from her mother, which startles him – the look on his face is hilarious, even in this moment – and manly handshakes from her father and Eddie. Nic sort of sniffles at him, which is pretty good for Nic, who reacts to Terry's constant chatter by being the quietest of them all.

And then they're on the train, and she's looking back at her family – just like the Express, only not, so very not – and she looks just as hard as she can, because she needs to preserve this in her mind, just in case.

Just in case she never sees them again. Then she turns and looks at Terry, who waited until they were seated to burst into sobs and is now muffling them in Theo's t-shirt (Anne quite likes the look of him in Muggle clothing, but hasn't found the right moment to mention it). Sets of four seats, paired facing each other, so she's facing her sister and her boyfriend, and it hits her, then, this is it. Her family is back there and she misses them already, so much, but this has to be her family right now, these two people, just like at Hogwarts: because Terry has to be protected and she needs Theo to protect her. Less than a year 'till she's seventeen, but it feels like a lifetime. Only a few days, for Theo. It will have to be soon enough. If they're attacked, there will be no point not fighting, but until then…just Theo, between her and Terry and everything bearing down on them. Add in her ability to be a Muggle, blend in, and it's not a lot going for them. It will have to be enough. Just forty-eight hours ago it was a normal summer morning and she was contemplating maybe going for a walk, or pulling out her flute. Now…now this. She's known it was coming, in a funny buried way, but it still seems dream-like.

She reaches across the gap and takes Theo's hand, and Terry's, holds them both tight, like a promise.

_Just us, now. No more games. There's a war on. _

_We'll have to be enough_.

* * *

It's not a short train-ride to the Lake District, and it's mid-afternoon by the time they're disembarking, bags on their backs. Theo's looking around again, but it's not the look of wow-Muggles-how-do-they-do-all-this she's become used to in the last two days; it's caution, wariness. He's on the alert.

So is Anne. Her wand is in her pocket. She won't be caught unarmed.

"So how far is it?" Theo asks, as she absent-mindedly checks Terry's backpack so as to avoid complaints on the walk.

"About forty minutes' walk, I think," she replies. "See, there's the payphone Mum talked about. But lunch first, I think."

"Yes please," says Terry immediately, "can I have a milkshake?"

Terry gets her milkshake because it's hot and Anne thinks she deserves the treat for not being the howling mess Anne wants to be, apart from that little crying jag on the train. She's being awfully quiet for Terry, too. Anne and Theo have juice and sandwiches. They buy them at a little Muggle café – Anne barely notices the way she describes things now, "Muggle" this, "Muggle" that, how she'll blend back in this year the way they need to she doesn't know – and eat them on a bench overlooking the lake. The cabin is up in the hills, not too far. No view, Anne understands, which is why it's not a prime spot. As soon as they've eaten, Theo stands, clearly unable to take sitting still.

"Come on, let's go."

Terry hasn't finished her milkshake and walks along making awful slurping noises, which Theo threatens to hex her horribly for. She stops, for a bit. The sun is bright and the birds are singing and the Lake District is very lovely, Anne's never been here before. She wishes it was just her and Theo on a holiday, maybe, enjoying each other's company and the chance to be out together in public without Theo having to worry about being disowned forever by his family.

The fact that this is essentially what's happened, that's the price of this pleasant walk, is mostly subsumed by everything other reason they're here. Anne knows she's not the reason Theo left aunt and uncle's house. He would have without her. He has that much integrity, she knows, that much sense of himself.

She can't help feeling like it's her fault, just a bit. Terry, thank God, is far too young and self-involved to consider this, and so is as happy as it is possible to be in this moment.

Anne squeezes Theo's hand, and he squeezes back. They hold on. They've got this moment in the sun, before the storm. Even with Terry's awful milkshake noises, it's almost a perfect one.

The cabin is not as dilapidated as her mother claimed, when they step into the clearing; it looks quite sturdy. There's a well, and one power line, apparently, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and a chimney. There's a porch outside. There's a clearing, which gets Theo muttering about lines of attack and wards and where to put them. Anne remembers that she tossed a couple of packs of seeds she found in the shed into her bag, and wonders if there might be room to plant some silverbeet or something. They might be here long enough for it to grow, and it'll be something to do. She's brought her schoolbooks, they all have, but practical magic is the core of it all; theory gets dry.

"So we're staying here, until it's safe," Terry says, dubious. "Really?"

"Really," Anne tells her. "It's a bit exciting, don't you think? Like the Famous Five or something."

"Who?" Theo says, then shakes his head. "Never mind, tell me later. I want to look around."

Terry beats him in, giggling, and Anne follows them both. _Until it's safe. Let that be not too long, please, and long enough that we are. Especially Terry. And my family. Let them all be safe. _

"You okay?" Theo asks quietly, looking back at her.

"I'll do for now," she says, meeting his eyes. "Come on; we need to unpack, and then I promised my mother I'd write, as soon as I could." Muggle post should be safe enough. Gwaihir and Bronwyn have been told to fly here. Anne hopes they make it.

"I wouldn't want to keep your mother waiting," Theo grins, and gestures her to precede him. Terry's voice is already filling the cabin, light and laughing.

_Let it be enough, all of it_.

They go inside.


	2. Part II: Letters and Things

_the one Anne never actually sends_

Dear Mum and Dad and Eddie and Nic,

We got here without any trouble, except for Theo threatening to hex Terry for drinking her milkshake too loudly, and that's about normal for those two. Tell your friend the cabin is lovely; it's got everything we're going to need. I'm not looking forward to trying to wash clothes in the sink but Theo says he knows how to do it with magic, so I told him he can do the washing, then, since it's so easy. Or he can when it's his birthday.

It's beautiful where we are. The weather is holding out fine, although the radio says there's storms predicted next week. Dad, thanks for reminding me to take a pack of cards; Terry and I don't watch much TV anymore, so we don't miss it (if you were here, Nic, you'd be a real wreck!) and we're going to need things to do. I can't bring myself to pull out my schoolbooks just yet, not while it's still August. Theo says he'll lend me the ones I would have gone and bought for this year, so if we get to go back I won't be too far behind. I think a lot of other people like us won't be going to Hogwarts this year anyway.

Terry is not as loud as she usually is, which is good, since this cabin is just not that big. And she's playing outside a lot; we're all spending time out here.

In case your friend didn't describe the cabin to you, Mum, I will. It's got four rooms: two bedrooms, both quite small, a bathroom with a shower and sink (that's where those clothes are going), and a living room with a fireplace and a sort of kitchenette in the corner. You can never really tell when the electricity is going to work so we've been using candles if we're up late enough in the evening. I can't believe there's a real microwave – that was a stroke of luck! When it works.

And just because I know you're all going to be asking (except Nic) I'm sharing with Terry and Theo has the other room to himself. Terry and I got the one with the bunks. Terry thinks it's the best thing ever. I quite like it myself. It's not home or Hogwarts but it's going to be okay.

I don't really know what else to say, so I'll sign off now.

Love,

Anne.

P.S. Mum, I just found that extra stuff you put in my bag when I wasn't looking – you really didn't have to and I can't believe you did. Terry saw. It's entirely your fault.

Anne finds this letter crumpled up with her old schoolbooks five years later. She can't believe she had that little to say. Then again, her memories from those first few days in the cabin are mostly of Theo relaxing little by little as the days drew closer to his birthday, and Terry tuning the radio carefully to hear the wizarding stations.

The day the Ministry falls (they know because Theo knows that the new Minister is a Death Eater) Anne turns the radio off, and won't let Terry touch it for three days. When Theo walks over and turns it on, she stiffens, until she hears the clear strains of classical music.

Theo learns a lot about Muggle radio stations that August.

* * *

_the first conversation_

"…so, anyway, we just came down to the village to get some supplies and things. I've told you all about the cabin and us – how are you all?"

"Everything's just normal – not that I'm glad I don't have more to say than that! Nic's getting pretty impatient for school to start again, and so is Eddie. His summer cricket team's only got one more game left, but he's trying out for the school first eleven soon."

"Oh, that's really great, tell him good luck from me."

"Of course. Can I have a word to Terry?"

"Sure, Mum, hold on."

"Hi, Mum!"

"Terry, how are you going?"

"Great. Theo's going to teach me how to fish in the stream and I helped Anne plant in the garden and we've come down to the village to get some stuff so we can make a cake for Theo for his birthday, or sort of a cake, in the microwave, brownies or something, and it's the first day we've come outside for _two whole days_ because of the rain, so I'm really glad it's stopped."

"You sound like you're having fun!"

"I s'pose so. I just wish I knew when we could come home."

"Me, too, honey. Would you like to talk to Dad?"

"Anne says we've really got to go now, but can I next time? And I'll let you know if I catch any fish!"

"You do that. Tell Anne love from me, and I'll talk to you next week."

"Okay! Love you, Mum. Bye!"

"Bye, honey."

The electricity stays on long enough for Anne to make brownies and they celebrate Theo's seventeenth birthday as rain falls on the cabin roof. Terry eats too much of the brownie and has to lie down for a bit. Theo and Anne take advantage of her retreat to enjoy some alone time on the cabin's sole couch, which is made only mildly frustrating by the fact that Terry is still only a yard or two away on the other side of the door. It's the first alone time they've had in weeks, so it's something.

It takes Theo almost three days to figure out that going away and leaving them alone was Terry's amazingly subtle birthday present to him. Astounding, he tells her when he figures this out, for a snotty-nosed Gryffindor, and her whole face breaks out in a smile.

Theo is reminded that he really quite likes Terry, even when he's helping baby-sit her. That's quite a feat.

* * *

_the first one that arrives_

Dear Dad and Mum and Nic and Eddie,

I am having a very nice time even if Theo is VERY MEAN and won't let me listen to the special wizard radio as much as I want. He says the news is too depressing. I told him that if he doesn't tell me who the Death Eaters really are I won't be depressed, but he didn't listen, and Anne agreed with him. Anne is very mean sometimes too, but they are doing most of the cooking and things so I should probably be nice to them. I helped Theo hang out some washing yesterday, so don't let Anne tell you they are doing _all_ the work! We made a washing line with some twine we found in the cupboard by tying one end to the porch railing and one to a tree. This way we can take it down when we're not using it.

It was Theo's birthday last week, so he can do magic now without getting caught, like Anne and I told you. The first thing he did was put lots of wards and jinxes around the cabin. The most important is the Fidelius Charm, which is very difficult and I didn't think he could do, but he did. It means that unless the person who is keeping the secret of where the cabin is tells you, you can't find it. This will make it very, very hard for Death Eaters to find us. It means that if you came and looked for the cabin now none of you could find it! So I can't tell you where it is exactly because then you'd know. But I hope you come and see it one day when we can leave.

Washing dishes and things is lots easier now Theo can use magic, but he says there isn't one for getting the washing in except Accio and then the clothes just go everywhere. When I get back to Hogwarts I'm going to ask Professor Flitwick if there's a proper spell for it, because if wizards are so clever and have invented all these other things they must have one. I bet Theo just doesn't know it. He's not as clever as he thinks he is.

I sort of hope he is, though, or the Death Eaters might find us. I don't want that. I'd rather Theo got to be all annoying and smart.

He says this letter will burn up when you've finished reading it, which I think is just like a spy movie only Theo's never seen a spy movie so he doesn't know what I'm talking about but there are some James Bond books on the bookshelf here so Anne said he should read them and that would tell him, because we don't have a TV to show him. And the letter would have burned up if you weren't Dad and Mum and Nic and Eddie trying to read it, but you are, so it didn't.

The bookshelf also has Monopoly and Cluedo and other games so we won't be bored. Theo has never played them, so I get to teach him. He is teaching me to play chess, but we don't have a wizarding set, so the pieces don't talk. When we can go back to Hogwarts I am going to borrow Jake Oram's proper chess set and have a game with Theo, so we can do it properly. (I think if we go back to Hogwarts this time I will be allowed to talk to Theo in public, and so will Anne. This makes Anne very happy, I think, and Theo too, even if it means his family all hate him. I think it's stupid to not be able to talk to your girlfriend in public. Death Eaters must be very stupid people.)

That's all I have to write now. Anne says we will post this letter when we go shopping for food, but we're going to a different village this week so people don't start recognising us, just in case, and this one doesn't have a payphone. So I can't talk to you this week. I can next week though.

Love,

Terry (and Anne and Theo too.)

* * *

_the time Theo has to dial_

"Hello?"

"Hello, Jonathan Fairleigh speaking – who is this?"

"Oh, hi, Mr. Fairleigh, this is Theodore. Anne was just making me practice using the phone."

"That's right, Mary said something about you not knowing how. Everything working okay? None of you killed each other yet?"

"I think Floo is really much easier. And no, no-one's killed anyone yet."

"I bet it's been close, with Terry stuck with you two in those quarters. I do know my own daughters!"

"Well, yes. Close. Anyway, here's Anne."

"Hi Dad! How are Eddie and Nic enjoying being back at school?"

"Lots – until the second-week blues kick in and they remember they have to do homework instead of hanging around the house all day watching TV. You're not missing Hogwarts, are you?"

"Oh, you know…yes, I guess. But we've been hearing some stuff on the wizarding radio, and…I'm kind of glad I'm not there, too. I can read between the lines. They're making everyone who's Muggle-born prove they have a wizard relative or they're throwing them in Azkaban. Even the kids, Dad. I don't want to be there for that. I really don't want Terry to be there for that."

"I…I can imagine. You sure you're all holding out all right? Your Theo sounded a bit tense."

"That's how he always sounds when he's talking to grown-ups. Oh, don't look at me like that! Sorry, I was talking to him."

"I guessed so. So, have you three been doing anything interesting?"

"Well…"

They talk in turns until the phone card runs out, Anne and Terry and Theo, who is dragged on at the last minute to hear about Nic's piano lessons. He smiles so widely while he's on the phone, forgetting his awkwardness with the Muggle device, that Anne walks lightly all the way back to the cabin. She knows he's been piling things in the corner of the cabin with the eventual goal of Transfiguring a piano. She pulls out her flute rarely these days, hesitant to flaunt what Terry and Theo are missing in front of their faces.

When they get home, Theo asks her to play something. She's not sure why, but she does, and Terry curls up next to him on the couch, and it feels like home. Not the old home that she misses or her dorm at Hogwarts, but a new one.

Anne tries to ignore that feeling, because it also feels something like a betrayal.

* * *

_the one Anne nearly forgets to send_

Dear Mum, Dad, Eddie, and Nic,

Now it's mid-October the tourist season is almost over here and we're starting to be more visible. Theo insists that we go to different towns and villages every time we go to get supplies, and I can't disagree. With broomsticks it's not difficult. I think it's a very good thing you let Terry have one for her birthday. Last night we flew up to the highest peak above the lake and let Terry tell us what all the stars were. We know, of course, but it's good practice for her astronomy. We're all spending a lot of time reading our textbooks and wishing we could be going to classes. I never realised how much I liked school until now. But it's getting worse out there. We can't, we just can't. I'm so glad we're all safe.

Theo has managed to Transfigure a lot of old wood into a piano, and he went around grinning from ear to ear for three days afterwards. The house has been warded against sound, don't worry, so no one could hear him trying to tune the dratted thing – Terry and I went for a walk in protest! There's some stuff magic just can't do, you see, and creating a working, _tuned_ piano is one thing out of everyone's grasp. But it's working now, and it's brilliant. Theo and I have been playing some of our old duets. If I close my eyes, I'm back in the music practice rooms at Hogwarts and Terry has just slipped in after being kicked out of the Library for talking.

I miss all of that, so much. I miss being able to do magic. Theo's the only one of us who can safely, unless we're caught, in which case anything goes.

Never mind all of that.

I'm very excited to hear that Aunt Jill and Uncle Daniel are coming for Christmas. It seems like forever since we've seen them. Are any of their kids coming? Todd must be just about to finish his degree at Cambridge this year.

I don't know if it'll be safe for us to come but we'll do our best, of course. And I'm bringing Theo, if we do come. I know that might be a bit weird but he's got nowhere else to go and I can't leave him alone this Christmas, I just can't. I know you'll understand that.

I have to go and keep my beloved sister and boyfriend from stabbing each other with blunt knives, but I'll talk to you all next Wednesday evening. Can't wait.

Love,

Anne.

P.S. Anne forgot about this but I'm going to post it today, so it should be reaching you the day after we call. Hope all is well.

Regards,

Theo.

Anne wants to be angry at Theo for putting a footnote to her letter and presumably reading it, but she is so proud of him for posting it all by himself (and having to buy a stamp from the shop and all!) that she forgets to be. Then she realises she's not angry anyway, because there's nothing she really wants to hide from Theo, save her fears, and he shares those anyway.

She's not sure if she's more scared of this fact, or the fact that she's not really scared about it. Time seems to short for these sorts of fears, anyway; and Theo has trusted her with so much for so long, even when she didn't know what he was entrusting her with (his life, maybe, probably, last summer when he wrote to her, though she didn't realise it then.) She will be content with what she has. It's so very much.

* * *

_the time Terry hangs up on her brother_

"…you did? That's great! Look, why don't you talk to Terry? I'm sure she'd love to hear all about it. Okay, here she is."

Anne hands the phone down to Terry. They're in the village by themselves; Theo wasn't all that happy about letting them go, but it's broad daylight, it's a village they've never been to, and the chances of randomly running into a Death Eater are, she feels, low.

It's nearly November, and there's a cold wind off the lake. Anne wraps her arms around herself, and leans back against the glass of the phone booth, listening to the rise and fall of her sister's voice. Terry's getting taller; she's shot past Anne's shoulder this past year, and is still going. It probably doesn't mean anything in the long run. Anne herself did all her growing between the ages of ten and thirteen, and no one is ever going to call her tall. But it's something to imagine, while Terry makes lots of excited noises and says things like "you did _what_?" and "in one over, really?". It's something good to imagine, Terry with a couple of inches on her, because it implies a future where Terry has years to keep growing. Anne's been doing a lot of thinking about things like that, lately. It feels safe enough, where they are, but that doesn't mean they are. Not at all.

She tunes back in to the sound of Terry screeching in outrages tones "No, I'm _not_, and if you're going to say things like that I'm not going to talk to you at all!" and slamming the phone back into its cradle so hard the whole booth shakes slightly.

Terry folds her arms and scowls.

Anne blinks at her. "What was _that_ all about? I was sort of hoping to talk to Dad, you know."

"He said we were _making it up_," Terry spits out. "He said we were just being scaredy-cats." Abruptly, her expression shifts. "We're not, are we, Anne?"

It's easy to understand why Eddie would think that, after nearly three months of nothing, of peace and quiet. But Anne remembers the look on Theo's face when they left without him this morning. She remembers the news on his wizard radio, so carefully edited. She remembers.

"We're not, no," she tells Terry. "Not at all. But that doesn't mean you should've hung up on him – I _did_ want to keep talking a bit longer, and it's just Eddie being stupid. He says things like that about our world all the time. You know that."

"Yeah, but…" Terry lets her arms drop, but now she's tapping the side of the booth restlessly. "It didn't matter, the other stuff, he says things and he doesn't mean them, but he _meant_ it, Anne, this one, he meant it and I don't like that. I don't like people saying I'm a liar. I don't like _Eddie_ saying I'm a liar. It's…it's not _nice_."

Anne lays a hand on Terry's shoulder; that wind is _cold_. "Come on, let's head home. Theo's probably got the fire going, we can make toast. Don't worry about Eddie."

"But we should ring them back," Terry argues, glancing at the phone. "We should – I can't yell at him if we don't ring back!"

"No." Anne is surprised at her own determination. "No, let it go, Terry; he'll be sorry when you don't ring back. We'll call them next week."

Terry frowns at her, then shrugs. "Okay."

It's not that Anne wouldn't like to keep talking to her family, because she would; but there's Theo, waiting for them, and she keeps remembering that look of concern. Besides – Terry's in a temper over whatever exactly Eddie said, but Anne is angry, genuinely angry.

_We could _die_ tomorrow, we could be killed, and worse – and he has the gall to tell Terry it's a lie. And I get it, I _get_it, he hasn't had any real evidence, but…does he think that, does he think I'd do this on a whim? Leave school, leave everything? Does he think it's all some sort of joke. _

_Then again, Eddie's always thought this was a joke. The whole thing. Magic, Hogwarts…the day he didn't get a letter, he stopped believing in it. _

She shakes it off. It's pointless.

They walk home.

* * *

_the one from Hogwarts_

When the owl swoops down to land on the porch railing, Theo is so startled he drops the clean washing he's carrying all over the deck. He knows, intellectually, that they can't be traced by owl, he did that spell ages ago, carefully – he looked up a lot of spells, back in April, in the two frantic days between Dumbledore's death and his aunt arriving to take him away from the school. He _knows_it, but it doesn't stop the jolt of terror.

There's barely time for that, though; the owl drops a single letter on the porch and is away again, fluttering up in a widening spiral into the grey early November sky. They haven't had any snow yet, but Theo's sure it's not far away. He's still standing there, feet littered with t-shirts and socks and one lonely bra, when Terry comes out of the cabin.

"What is it?" she asks curiously. "Did you get the washing all dirty? Anne's going to be really mad if you got the washing all dirty, she doesn't have any clean bras left. What's that? Is that a letter? Who's it for?"

"Yes, I don't know, only the stuff actually touching the decking and I can shake that out, she won't if you don't tell her. Now come and help me pick this up."

Terry rolls her eyes, but complies, which is new – she's started actually doing what he says in the last two months or so, rather than blissfully ignoring what she doesn't want to hear. Between them it only takes a minute to pick all the washing up; Terry drops her load on top of his and dashes over to get to the letter first.

"It's for Anne!" she announces triumphantly, then turns on her heel and scampers inside, yelling "Anne, Anne, you got a letter! A real letter, by owl! Come see!"

Theo follows her, pausing only to drop the washing on the sofa. It's all revoltingly domestic, but it makes him happy, in a really strange way. The summer before coming to Anne's was so out of kilter and terrifying that the regularity of clean washing is comforting.

Oh, God, he's getting _old_.

Anne comes out of her room, where she'd been reading her History of Magic textbook – Theo doesn't know why she bothers with that, but she says it's interesting background, so good for her, then – and raises an eyebrow at him.

"Okay?"

He shrugs, sticking his hands in his pockets. He's in jeans today, because nothing else was clean. They're still bizarre, but Anne likes them. So never mind.

"Probably. There's not a lot we can do about it, anyway. Who's it from?"

She shakes her head. "I – haven't opened it. It looks like – it's not Ministry, anyway, none of the stamps."

Theo's brain starts working, suddenly, and he strides over, plucks the letter out of her hand. "Wait, no, _don't_ open it yet, just in case, I need to – it might -"

Anne's eyes widen. "I didn't think of that."

"I almost didn't," Theo reminds her. "Some fugitives we make."

All the tests he can do don't show anything, so he opens it with his wand, cautiously.

"Oh,_here,_" Terry says, and picks the folded sheet of parchment up before he can stop her. "Now read it, Anne, who's it from!"

Theo makes an abortive gesture towards it, but the damage would have been done by now if there'd been any to do, and, really, there's no reason for the Death Eaters to be subtle, except to induce terror, and they're all scared enough as it is. He glares at Terry, even so.

"_Don't_ do that, I didn't say it was all right."

Anne seems too engrossed in the letter to pay attention to his admonition, in support or no; Terry just scowls back, saying, "You're not my Mum," and flounces off, despite the difficulties of flouncing in trousers. Theo opens his mouth, then shuts it again. She's being pretty good, considering, and he just can't be _bothered_ chewing her out for the little things anymore, not seriously. No one told him being in charge of kids was this much _work_.

"Who's it from?" he asks Anne, who is staring at the end of the letter with an expression he can't decipher.

"Oh – people at school." Her voice is…wistful. "You can read it if you want."

Theo doesn't actually care about Anne's friends, but news is news, and curiosity kills cats but not Slytherins, so he takes the letter anyway.

(He wishes he had people at school to write to _him_.)

Anne leans on his shoulder as he reads, as if deciphering more meaning though his eyes.

Dear Anne,

We hope you get this letter. We were all really worried when you and your sister weren't there when school started, especially with the new rules, but it's probably better that you're not. Everything's_horrible_. (Mai's writing this, so you know.) Sarah never came back either; she sent us a letter from Jamaica, she and her father and her brothers are there, because of her father being Muggleborn. They don't have new rules yet, so it's safe. Dave, Brian, me, Gabby, Ellie, and Jeremy are all here. Nothing's happened to any of our families, probably because Ellie's grandparents have all gone overseas and so have Jeremy's mother's parents, and everyone else is – pureblood not Muggleborn you know, okay under the new laws. But you and Chris and Jack are all out there somewhere and we just wanted to let you know we're thinking about you. And that we're worried.

(This is Gabby now.) It's totally a good idea that you didn't come back because it's _horrible_ here, the twins teaching the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies are Death Eaters and they're _freaky_, they let the prefects use the Cruciatus curse on people. None of us have been hurt yet but we could be any day and it's all just so wrong. If you did come back they'd probably have taken you to Azkaban, it was better with Umbridge. I almost wish we had her back. It's honestly that bad.

(Ellie, now.) We're coping, though. We're okay. We hope you and Terry and your family are, too. We figure since we haven't heard anything about you, you must be safe. (And my grandparents get the Muggle papers and I asked them to send me a letter if any of you are mentioned, as, you know. They can't get mad at us for just wanting to know, the Death Eaters, I mean. We hope.)

You probably can't write back to us from wherever you are. But if you can we'd really like to know how you are. What's happened to you. Like we said: remember that you've got friends here, and we wish you didn't have to stay away.

Love,

Ellie, Gabby, and Mai.

P.S. The boys say to send good thoughts too.

P.P.S. We weren't going to tell you because we weren't sure but it was in the Daily Prophet and it must be true. They caught Jack and his family. They didn't say anything about what happened to his family, but he's in Azkaban. They said. He might be – anyway, we thought you should know.

Theo's never heard of this Jack, except in passing when Anne talked about everyone who was in Hufflepuff in her year, but he can feel her shoulders stiffen, next to him. He hands the letter back.

"I -"

Anne cuts him off with a finger pressed to his lips. "Not now. We should…the washing needs sorting."

Not talking about things _sucks_ as a way of coping, but Theo has been doing it for years (mostly involuntarily) so he gets it. They sort the washing in silence.

* * *

_the time Anne tells Nic it's okay_

"Hi, Anne! Did you know it's only thirty-seven days 'till Christmas? I counted on the calendar. Are you excited?"

Anne laughs. "Yes, of course. What else have you been doing, Nic?"

"School and boring stuff. And piano lessons. But I told you I was doing those already. I can nearly play a whole song right through."

"That's great news! I hope you're practicing."

"Every day. Mostly. When Mum reminds me. Once I practiced _twice_ in a day. Are you practicing the flute?"

"When I remember. Theo and Terry can't play their instruments here, so it's just me. Hey, listen, can I talk to Mum or Dad?"

"Can I talk to Terry later?"

"Sure."

"Okay, here's Dad."

"Anne! We haven't heard from you for a while. Is everything okay?"

"Fine, fine – seriously, nothing is happening. We're all so bored we're reading textbooks and cleaning. What about you?"

"Just normal life for us. We've been scanning the newspapers, but we can't see anything specific we can say is from your world – does that mean things are getting better?"

"No. They're – really, no. I got a letter from school; one of my classmates got caught. He's Muggleborn, too. No one knows what's happened to him, but he…he's probably…I'm trying not to think about it. It's not better. Nothing near. Look at your papers – I bet there's still a lot of unexplained murders and accidents, aren't there, more than normal?"

"I…suppose there are. It's just so hard to imagine a, a _war_ happening, right here, without anyone noticing."

"You notice. We notice, the people who're in it. Everyone will notice, if it's lost for good."

"And what's the risk of that?"

Anne turns the conversation to lighter things, then puts Terry on the phone. That's one discussion she can't have, or keep having, not when she doesn't have an answer and doesn't want to tell her parents what she fears. They're scared enough.

She wonders when it became her turn to protect them, and asks Theo as much, a couple of days later. He thinks before answering.

"I suppose…if you really reduce it down, the moment you were born a witch."

"But that's _stupid_," she tells him, "they're not helpless just because they're Muggles, they're my parents! They've protected me for years, from – well, everything. Life. Not protected, I mean, looked after. They've looked after me. I'm sixteen, they don't need me to look after them just because I've got magic."

"No, no," Theo shakes his head. "Not for normal things, maybe; I try not to think of Muggles as – I don't know, handicapped, but I can't help it sometimes. Don't look at me like that; that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that they _aren't_ equipped to deal with magical things because they don't have magic. In the end, they can't fight it, not properly. Not like you can. So it's your job to protect them from those things."

"That's…well, that sucks," Anne sums up. "Quite a lot."

Theo grins. "Don't worry. I'm sure they can still protect you from marauding boyfriends and things."

A few moments later, Terry wanders back into the cabin. "EWWWW, you're KISSING near the COOKING STUFF. It's UNSANITARY, STOP IT."

"I don't need Mum and Dad when I've got Terry," Anne giggles.

"I HATE YOU GUYS SO, SO MUCH," declaims Terry.

* * *

_the one from Theo's mother_

Theo would be unreasonably terrified when the owl spirals down to meet him if it hadn't been for the last letter, and the failure of the Death Eaters to appear and kill them all. This one looks like it wants to stay a little while, which is fine; Bronwyn and Gwaihir don't get sent out these days because there's no one safe to send them to, so they are happy to see a newcomer. Terry lets them out of their cages and they all three perch on the porch railing, hooting companionably.

Theo opens the letter with shaking fingers. He does not recognise the writing, and does not know who would write to him.

He hopes it's not his father. That would hurt too much. Last time they spoke, Theo lied to his face, told him he was ready to swear loyalty to the Dark Lord. What he meant was, _I'm leaving, forgive me._

He knows his father won't have got the message, can't have, if Theo's escape was successful. Theo is terrified of a response.

He goes into his room, but Anne ignores the closed door and comes in to sit beside him.

"Do you need to be alone?"

"I don't know," Theo tells her, staring at the envelope like it might bite. He's checked it thoroughly for hexes, but you never know. "Yes. Maybe. Come if I call?"

"Okay," Anne says, sounding amused at something, and kisses him on the cheek. "I'll be in the main room, I promised Terry a game of speed Scrabble."

Theo hasn't heard of this "scrabble" game, though he is by now thoroughly familiar with Cluedo and Monopoly (the first of which is mildly entertaining, especially when the pieces are re-cast as Hogwarts teachers, the second of which is just befuddling). He nods, and Anne leaves.

Theo opens the envelope with his wand, at a distance, just to be safe. The letter falls out harmlessly, yellow with age. Something small and shiny follows it onto the bedding – a key. Theo is confused.

He picks the letter up, anyway. It's nothing he ever could have expected.

Dear Theodore,

I don't know if you're still calling yourself that, but it's the only name I know you by, so it will have to suffice. In fact, it's even odds that this is no longer how you think of yourself – the only people who called me Adrienne when I was seventeen were my parents. You will doubtless be as rebellious as I was at seventeen; maybe as much as your Aunt Monique (though I hope not.) Perhaps you're a Teddy - on second thoughts, I don't think so! Perhaps you're a Theo. Yes, I can see that. Perhaps you're still a Theodore, but that I doubt. Two syllables seems to be the most teenagers can manage when it comes to names.

I can see you playing on the floor beside my bed. You're concentrating very hard on making a tower with your blocks, as high as it can go. Maybe that means you'll be a Slytherin like your father. Or maybe I am reading too much into nothing, as your aunt Karena tells me I do far too often. Forgive me; it's just that in these last few days I have been racking my brains, trying to decide what you will become. Since as you know (how could you not?) I will not have the privilege of any other mother - of seeing you grow. And so we come to the reason I'm writing this letter at all.

I have been luckier than some. I have time to write this letter, time to give you something of my thoughts. You're probably wondering why you did not get this on your seventeenth birthday. That would be logical (and we Ravenclaws are logical, for the most part.) The truth is I forgot. In August, I was concentrating too hard on savoring my last summer; on seeing you play in the sunlight. Summer is my favourite season, all light and laughter, the easiest time of year.

But it is December, as I write this, and fifteen years is a good round number. So you are reading this on December the second, nineteen ninety-seven. That seems an impossibly long time in the future. Monique told me once of a Muggle book she read about the future, called 1984; 1984 must seem a long way in the past to you, but it is a future that I won't see. In fifteen years…I can't begin to imagine.

Indulge me in a flight of fantasy. As your father has told you, I am sure, I never had many of them, preferring to trust to the solid and real. Music doesn't count. Music is as real as these words. Eric has promised me you'll have the chance to know that truth, and I believe you will.

So, ignoring the fact that you're currently knocking over every tower of blocks you have built and asking for my approval of the feat, I can see you now. You are tall, like your father and I, and handsome (of course). You are still young, and your life is before you. You are probably sitting in your House common room, wishing you didn't have so much homework with your NEWTs coming up this year. You are writing to Eric, maybe, or to a friend, or flirting with some pretty girl. You have your whole life ahead of you and you can't wait to start it. You are my son, and I'm proud of you; I don't have to know you as you are now to know I will be.

I don't know what to tell you of myself because I don't know what you know. I have made Eric promise to tell you about me, as much as he can bear to; but I will not be there to hold him to that promise. But there are some things your father will not have told you because he does not know them, or does not believe the knowledge will serve you well. On that point he and I will have to disagree, so here you are.

The most important thing, I think, is my sister. You probably don't know I have a sister. I do. Her name is Monique O'Neill; she and I were very close, once. Then the War began, and Monique threw herself away on a half-blood with a Muggle mother, and our parents never spoke to her again. I shouldn't have, but I missed her too badly; and thus I know that she has three children who you will _not_ have met at Hogwarts, since the youngest of them is seven years your elder. I have never met her husband, but I know she is happy, or believes herself to be. I know her children are Janet, Liam, and Catriona.

You need to know these things because if the Dark Lord rises again, as it is possible he may (though unlikely), you may be caught up in the struggle. Should you choose not to support your father – and I pray you will not choose that, but I cannot predict the future – I wish to give you another option, another way. Don't tell your father, obviously. He will not understand. I hope you do, whatever has happened. I just want you safe and alive, my Theodore. I understand your father's cause, but I see no need for you to bleed for it. I hope you can understand that. Understand me.

In the end I'm just sorry I'm leaving you behind so soon; I'm sorry I can't be there for you. I hope you are happy, I hope you are well, I hope…I have too many hopes for you to put them all to paper. Just try and be true to yourself and to your heritage. It's the best advice I can give you.

With all my love,

Adrienne Nott.

P.S. The key enclosed is to my Gringotts vault; the contents are yours. There are a few things your father is better off not seeing (photos of my sister and her children, mostly), but I have only one request aside from that – buy yourself a late birthday present from me.

Theo lets the letter drop back onto the bed. His heart is pounding like he's just run a mile, though he's not sure why; his hands are shaking. He wants to go get Anne, he wants to curl up in a ball on the bed, he doesn't know what he wants. All these long years barely remembering he _had_ a mother, not talking to his father about it because he didn't see the need, and now – and so much more than just a message. _I understand your father's cause, but I see no need for you to bleed for it. You probably don't know I have a sister. _

He'd thought he'd been giving up on his family when he left home. No willing sacrifice, but it a necessary one. And now there's this, this impossible _hope_ that's utterly useless because Monique O'Neill and her family are most likely dead, if his father has anything to do with it, that or fled the country.

There's more, too; this unexpected blessing. _I just want you safe and alive. _

He understands that. He understands it so well. Not just from his position, either; it frightens him, some days, when he thinks about it, what he has done and might yet do to keep Terry safe. What he's risking, to keep _her_ safe and alive. So he understands his mother. He really, really does.

_I just want you safe_. He would give anything, _anything_, to hear that from his father or his aunt, to know that they value his life above their war. He never gave them the chance, but doing so would have risked too much. And here it is, from a woman fifteen years dead, who can't protect him, who can't send him anything but her love and her advice. In the present situation, it's useless.

He never realized how much he wanted to know this, anyway. It's meaningless in the sense that his mother probably _wouldn't_ approve of what he's doing, but…she never said she cut contact with her sister entirely, did she? Photos, she mentioned photos. Walking into Gringotts right now would be as bad as Hogwarts or the Ministry, worse, but still. It's…something.

For now, it's enough.

(He shows Anne the letter later that evening, doesn't tell her what it is, just hands it over and tells her to read it. Her eyes get wider and wider and by the time she's reached the end she looks like she's about to cry. Instead, she throws herself at him, hugging him so tight he can barely breathe.

"I'm so _glad_, Theo," she whispers into his shoulder, "you've _got_ this, this is _wonderful_," and all he can do, for a moment, is nod, and hug her back.

Yeah, he's glad.)

* * *

_the last call before Christmas_

"Hello, Eddie speaking."

"Hi, Eddie! Have you got the Christmas tree up yet? We don't have a Christmas tree, because Theo says we can come home, just for the day, maybe. So we're not getting one. Isn't that _cool_?"

"Hey, Terry. How are you?"

"I'm fine and Theo's really happy because he got a letter from his mother if you didn't hear about that but you should have because Anne wrote about it in _her_ letter, and Anne is fine mostly except she yelled at me the other day about not doing the dishes which is _so_ unfair because Theo can do them with magic and I can't and just because I get bored sometimes doesn't mean I should have to do chores and things, don't you think?"

"Are you even _breathing_?"

"Eddie! No, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Get Mum or Dad."

"Nah. Let me talk to Anne first."

"You are the worst big brother _ever_._Theo's_ a better big brother than you."

"You – Terry!"

"Don't worry, Ed, Theo's making faces at her. Your position is safe."

"Hey, Anne. How're things?"

"Not so bad. We're all getting cabin fever now we can't go for walks and things so much, but it could be a lot worse. We've got our schoolbooks. And we're teaching Theo all the Muggle board games – he _really_ likes Monopoly."

"Huh. I can't believe you're having fun with _school_ stuff."

"Well, if you couldn't go to school or cricket or football or _anything_, you'd go nuts, and you know it."

"I s'pose. Are you guys really coming for Christmas? Aunty Jill and Uncle Dan are coming, and maybe Todd, too. Sally's spending it with her boyfriend's family."

"I hope so. We're getting our news off the wizarding radio, and it sounds pretty bad out there, but no one's found us yet, so…it might be all right. We hope."

"Cool. I really hope you can come. Hey, you wanna talk to Nic before you talk to Mum? I think she'd kinda like to."

"Okay, sure, put her on."

"Anne! You're _really_ coming home?"

"Just for Christmas, but yeah, I think so. Looking forward to having your big sisters back?"

"Lots and lots. I missed you so much this term. It's not like you being at school, I know when you're coming back then. I didn't, this time. Oooh, I have to tell you, I like the piano so much! I can play three whole songs now. Do you think Theo will listen to me play them when you come?"

"I think he'd love to. Can you play any Christmas carols?"

"Just_Silent Night_. Are there different wizard carols? Theo could teach them to me! Will you ask him?"

"Of course. Do you think I could speak to Mum now?"

"Okay, here she is."

"Anne, sweetie, everything okay? None of you killing each other?"

"Not yet, just. The board games and the cards are getting lots of use now the weather's getting worse. Theo's reading his way through all the books that the Petersons have left here – I keep telling him they're not very _good_ Muggle books, but he says they're fascinating, like watching a Bludger hitting someone in Quidditch."

"I take it that's not very nice?"

"Only if you like being hit by an iron ball travelling very fast. It makes me glad I've never wanted to play. Terry wanted to, or at least to try out, this year."

"Maybe next year she can, when you go back."

"I suppose…I hope we can. I hope everyone can."

"Of course. You'd better give me a chance to talk to Terry, you must all be getting cold standing around outside."

"Just a little…here she is!"

Anne's mum wants to talk to Theo, too, a brief conversation that nevertheless puts a smile on his face. She asks him about that as they walk back, Terry practically skipping because she's been allowed to buy another milkshake. (Anne tries pointing out that it's_November_ and _freezing_ and it's probably going to _snow_ soon, but Terry doesn't seem to care, and Anne can't bring herself to mind too much, because Terry looks so uncomplicatedly happy.)

"It's just nice," Theo tells her.

"What is?"

"You know." He shrugs awkwardly, looking out over the sluggish grey lake. "Talking to someone…it's almost like back in fourth year, when I could go home for the holidays and talk to my father and it didn't matter what I said. When there weren't any secrets. That's nice."

Anne nods. "I…that would be. I guess I'm lucky, I've still got that. With my parents." If you avoid topics like room arrangements at the cabin because she _is_ sharing with Terry and she gets the funny feeling that her mother doesn't quite believe her. Not that Anne wouldn't mind the other, but…they're _hiding_ here, hiding from Death Eaters, and this is like her own personal offering to whatever beings want to listen, being a nice girl, a good girl. The other would feel like giving in to that creeping sensation of time pressing in, of wanting to snatch everything she can before their luck catches up with them. As long as she's got things to look forward to, she can stave that off.

She hopes.

"You are lucky," says Theo, "very lucky."

And she is, she knows she is.

But she can still feel something pressing on her skin, like a second skin, too tight.

Even though Terry asks, she won't teach her to read tea leaves. She won't take that risk.

(It doesn't matter that it doesn't work, that no-one's ever read their fate in their morning cup of tea. It's what she'd read into it: that's what she's scared to see.)

* * *

_the one that is sent, but not received_

Dear Fairleighs,

This is just to let you know that we will be coming for Christmas, all of us. I'm pretty sure by now that you've gone unobserved, and so have we. We'll call and let you know when we're arriving closer to the time.

I'd like to say thank-you again for permitting me to spend this holiday with you. It means a very great deal. I think you know that, though.

Looking forward to seeing you again,

Theo.

P.S. Anne and Terry send their love.

(Ten years later Nic will find this letter in the bottom of a box, while finishing the very last of the unpacking, along with two Christmas cards and a brochure for the local hardware store: the contents of a letterbox. She will read the letter, and the cards (one from Uncle Lionel in Scotland, one from family friends) and then she will put them back in the box, and put the box away. Unpacking it will wait for another day. She will prefer to go out into the sunlight, and just breathe.)

* * *

_the reason they don't go _

"Hello? It's Theo. Anne's got this awful cold, so she had to stay in, and I think Terry's coming down with it, but we didn't want you to worry."

"Who_is_ this?"

"…who is _that_?"

"This is – this is Daniel Ridley. I, I – this isn't a good time -"

"No! No, don't hang up. Anne's parents. Where are they? I need to speak to them, it's important!"

"I…that's not possible, I'm sorry, oh God, oh _God._"

"Tell. Me. What's. Going. On."

"What's_going on_ is that I just walked into my brother in law's house to find him and his wife and his son dead and his daughter huddled under the kitchen table, so whoever the hell you are, whatever you want is not more important than that!"

"Oh. Oh no. You – wait, I'll be there, I'm coming, tell Nicola that I'm on my way, I'll be there right away, just _don't do anything_."

"Tell Nicola _who_'s on their way, who _are_ you? You said Anne and Terry, are they with you, are they all right?"

"They're fine, they're all right. Tell her – this is Theodore Nott. Tell her I'm coming to get her. Just tell her."

"But, wait, I don't -"

The line goes dead.


	3. Part III: Breathe

**Part III – **_breathe_

Theo Apparates to Essex, operating on pure blind panic. He's got enough control of himself to be pretty sure there are no Death Eaters left at Anne's house, not any more, because none of them would pick up a phone or leave a Muggle alive.

Which doesn't explain _their daughter huddled under the kitchen table_, but Theo is praying it's all a mistake or an illusion or something and that he has not just done this, he has not just let two good people and their son die to keep him and Anne and Terry safe. He prays and he knows he's wrong.

He's managed to Apparate onto the street outside the Fairleighs' house. There is a car in the driveway that isn't theirs, and a Muggle man he doesn't know, maybe three or four years older than him, slumped next to it, staring blankly ahead. Theo ignores him because he doesn't look hurt and he has other priorities, but he rather thinks that might be Anne's cousin Todd who's at Cambridge.

He barrels into the house, wand at the ready, only to nearly run into a Muggle woman in the hallway who has her arm around Nic. The woman looks like Jonathan Fairleigh. His sister, it must be.

Nic has blood on her clothes and Theo drops to one knee, immediate, terrified. "Nic, Nic, are you okay, did they hurt you, are you -"

She shakes her head, scrubbing at her eyes. "They didn't – I – Theo, they're all dead, they're all _dead_."

Her voice cuts through him like a knife and before he knows it he's hugging her close, this child he barely knows, because she's so much like her sisters and she's alive and that's everything, right now, she's alive. This is what he can offer up to Anne and Terry in penance. Nicola Fairleigh, alive. This is everything.

He ignores Nic's aunt asking helpless questions above them both, even when the male voice he heard on the phone joins her. He ignores them because the important thing right now is to hold Nic tight and tell her no, he's sorry, he's so sorry, but she has to come away with him right now.

"Do you think they're going to come back?" she demands, going stiff with terror. "They can't, they can't -"

"I don't know but I'm going to take you to your sisters, you hear me? To Anne and Terry. So I need you to do something for me, Nic, can you do something for me?"

Nic nods dumbly. She looks like she's about to break at any moment but he only needs her to keep going long enough to get her to Anne, and then she can crack. Just 'till then. A few minutes, with Side-Along Apparition. Just a few minutes.

"Good. I need you to go upstairs and pack your bag, okay? Like you're going away overnight, but with some extra clothes. And then come back down and we have to go away, to Anne and Terry. Can you do that?"

She nods again, and he stands, turns her, pushes her in the direction of the stairs. She goes, like an automaton, because he's given her something to do in all the death and destruction. He hopes she can keep tracking long enough to finish her task.

Anne's uncle and aunt confront him when he turns to them, furious. He doesn't have time for this. He doesn't have time for anything.

"What the hell do you think you're -"

"Who on earth are -"

Theo points his wand at them. "_Imperio." _

It works because he means it. He really, really does.

"Have you called the Muggle emergency services? Tell me honestly."

"Yes, of course, they're on their way," says Anne's Aunt Jill, face blank under the Unforgiveable spell.

"Then you are both going to go outside and wait for them. Stay outside until they come. Go."

They might be able to tell Death Eaters he was here, but that information is probably out by now. He doesn't know how or why or if this was just a random attack on a Muggle household unlucky enough to have birthed two witches, but he has to assume the worst.

(It is years later that Theo and Anne, or rather Anne, working in the Ministry, find out that the harmless letters they exchanged two summers before were tracked by a Ministry determined to find Eric Nott, and then read by Death Eaters when the Ministry fell. Only bad filing stopped the attack happening sooner. They have mostly given up blaming themselves by then. Anne is hardly the only Muggle-born to lose her family; the chances that it would have happened anyway are high. That doesn't stop all the blame, but…they couldn't have known. They couldn't have.)

On Muggles, the Imperius Curse should hold long enough for what Theo needs to do. He waits until Dan and Jill Ridley have shut the door behind them, and then he goes into the living room. He'd seen the hand stretched through the doorway, and known. He has to do this. He has to.

There are three bodies in there. He counts them twice. There's a lot of blood. He hadn't expected otherwise.

Eddie Fairleigh is the only one Theo feels able to go near, and that's because it looks like the Killing Curse got him, right away, no pain, no fear, just an expression of surprise. Theo reaches down to close his eyes, but they won't. Right. Too long. Eddie is very cold.

There's a cricket ball, of all things, lying near where Eddie fell, like he was holding it and it rolled away. Theo picks it up, wipes the spatter of blood off. Stares. Maybe Eddie kept it in a game his team won, over the summer. Maybe it was lucky. Maybe…

He wishes he could ask Eddie. He can't. Eddie is dead. Mary and Jonathan Fairleigh are much, much deader, if exsanguination is any measure. It probably isn't.

(The cricket ball goes into his pocket. Next summer, Theo will give it to Terry, when she's scuffling around the house looking for a ball. He'll watch her run out into the garden, waving it at her waiting friends like a mad thing, all of them laughing in the sunlight. He'll get the feeling that somewhere, somehow, Eddie Fairleigh is now yelling at his sister to straighten her arm as she bowls. It'll be a good feeling.)

All Theo can think right now, though, is _I hope they didn't tell, I hope they didn't tell, please let them not have told_. Maybe this makes him a bad person. He hopes not. He's pretty sure they didn't because there is just so much blood. If they had there wouldn't be.

Or maybe there would. He's met people like Bellatrix Lestrange, after all. Like his father. He hopes, beyond measure, his father was not here. He knows there's a good chance he was.

It hurts more than he thought he was capable of being hurt, on that score.

He manages to stumble into the kitchen where they sat and planned just in time to not throw up on Mary Fairleigh's bloody corpse. He thinks, fuzzily, she would appreciate that, though as Muggles don't leave ghosts there's no way she can come back to tell him.

There's still no time to waste, so he rinses his mouth out with a mug left on the sink – just like someone was about to make tea – and heads upstairs. Nic is in her room, but she's not packing, or not anymore; she's just standing by her bed, one hand on her backpack, staring into space.

"Nic?" Theo says from the doorway. "Nic, we need to go."

"Why didn't they kill me?" she whispers forlornly, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"I don't know," he tells her honestly, coming forward. "Did they see you?"

Nic shrugs. "I, I…I heard my mum scream and I hid under my bed and one of them came in here, and I thought he saw me, but then he went away, and there was a lot of screaming. And then it went quiet. And I waited and I waited and I waited but no one came, so I went downstairs, and I found them."

She's about to break into sobs, Theo thinks, so he crosses the floor hastily and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Okay, right, have you got everything?"

"I need my toothbrush." Her voice is wooden. That's okay. Wooden is okay, if she keeps moving.

Theo takes her to the bathroom and they get her toothbrush and then they Apparate out of that house, both of them, and Theo hopes with all his heart she will never have to go back, because he thinks it might break her all over again.

They Apparate into the clearing outside the cabin. Theo forgets that Nic won't be able to see it until she asks where he's going.

He tells her to stay where she is, hoping that she can hold out for a few seconds alone, and dashes into the cabin. Anne is the Secret Keeper, because he knows that she will die in agony to keep Terry safe, but he cannot swear the same for himself. He hopes he would and knows that being here, with them, says he's willing to risk it, but he saw too much that month of June; he knows that everyone has a breaking point. He's not willing to test his, not with Terry at stake.

Anne bolts upright from the couch when he runs in, blood draining from her face. He must look a sight; he knows he got blood on his robes kneeling next to her mother's – to her mother.

"Are they -" she chokes out, but he interrupts her.

"No; no. Nic's out there, she can't see the cabin. Go tell her, bring her inside."

He doesn't need to say it twice. Sick or not, Anne throws back the blanket covering her and is out the door before he can blink. Theo sags against the table in the middle of the main room, strength gone from his knees. He can't _do_ this, he can't watch this family – his family, okay, all he's got right now – shatter, but he's going to have to. He just did.

He wishes he was stronger.

"Theo?" comes Terry's voice from the direction of her bedroom, unusually timid. "Theo, what's wrong?"

Theo collects himself, because he can hear Anne bringing Nic in, voice soothing. Nic can't have said anything yet, nothing concrete.

Anne won't need to hear anything; she'll have known it in Nic's face.

(Anne tells him later he's wrong; she knew before that, the moment he walked in the door. Theo always thought he had a pretty good game face. Apparently, he's wrong.)

"Theo?" Terry's voice rises urgently as she comes forward. He grimaces.

"Terry, just…sit down, please?"

She drops onto the couch like a puppet with her strings cut. Theo wants nothing more than to run far, far away and punch something, but he can't, not when Terry is looking at him like that. So he makes his way over, sits down next to her. Puts his arm around her. She immediately buries her face in his chest, as she never has, except that day on the train, coming here.

"I don't want to know, I don't want to," she whispers into his robes. "Don't say it, Theo, please? Don't."

The sound of the door opening makes him look up; Anne is guiding Nic in. Nic still looks like the walking dead (well, not so much, the walking dead look worse, but the turn of phrase suffices.) Theo hopes it lasts, because he's not sure he can take all the wailing he knows is coming.

"Please tell me what's going on, Theodore," Anne says in a level voice, bringing Nic over to sit next to Terry, until they're all crowded on the not-very-large couch. "Now."

Theo has never heard her voice so brittle or seen her blue eyes so hard. There is no escaping this. None.

It's worse than being back at his aunt and uncle's house.

"They came last night," Nic whispers, and Terry fists her hands in Theo's robes as she turns to look at her little sister. Anne is clutching the arm of the couch. Her knuckles are white.

"They came last night," Nic repeats, eyes distant, like she's seeing it all over again, "when I was in bed, and I heard Eddie go down to see. I heard him yell. I think they killed him then. I didn't hear him again. Then Mum and Dad ran down, and then…there was a lot of screaming. I hid under the bed. Someone came upstairs, and they came into my room. I thought they were going to kill me too, and then they left again."

Theo interrupts her, because he has to. "Nic. Did you hear your parents say anything about where we were?"

Anne looks like he's slapped her, but he has to, she has to know that, and her silence is consent enough for now.

"No," Nic whispers, "they just screamed, and said no, and that they didn't know. It stopped after a little while, and I waited, and I waited, and nobody came, and I went downstairs, and they were all – they were all -"

It's the crack in the dam that Theo has been waiting for, but it's not the violence he expected; it's worse, just silent tears sliding down her cheeks, as she says over and over "They were all -" until Anne physically turns Nic's head so she's leaning into Anne's jersey and then it's just sobs, so violent they wrack her entire body.

Terry is shaking her head, muttering "No no no no no" like it'll bring her parents and her brother back. Anne is just white, rocking her youngest sister gently, staring at Theo. Not through him, he could handle that, handle her losing it; _at_ him, seeing him.

"I'm sorry," he manages, haltingly, "I'm sorry, I thought they were safe, I thought -"

It seems like that was precisely the wrong thing to say, because Anne's face twists.

"No," she bites out, "no, don't you _dare_ say you're sorry, don't you _dare_, it wasn't you, it wasn't, it wasn't!"

But Theo knows, somewhere, that the _event_ might not be his fault, but the when and why and how? They are his responsibility, to the full. There is no one else to blame.

"Wasn't it?" he says, quietly, and Anne does slap him, hard.

"Don't you _dare_." She chokes on her words, and then she's crying, too, tears dripping down into Nic's dark brown hair.

Theo's cheeks have been wet for some time now, but he's never been able to sob like that, even when he thinks it might help. So he just holds Terry as tight as he can while she cries into his chest.

After a little while Anne reaches out to him, lifts his hand, grips it. He wants to jerk away, too angry at himself to allow this comfort, but that would hurt _her_. He can't risk that. The girls have gone quiet; all he can hear is the sound of four people breathing.

They sit, and they breathe, and they hold on.


End file.
